I did a little more research.
I was also told by Apple Support that "Synced Content" did not contain any duplicate media files.
So I deleted my entire music collection on my iPad.
Both Music and Synced Content dropped to 0 byte usage.
I got back over 12+GB of storage.
Then I download, via a USB, all of my songs to my iPad - about 6.2GB
Lo and behold, both Music and Synced Content were 6.2 GB for a total of about 12+ GB.
So...either Apple Support lied or they really don't know anything about the new storage category called "Synced Cotent".
I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and presume they are uninformed.
The larger question is why the developers of ios 17 decided to penalize Apple users who seek to manage their own media by double counting and unecessarily using resources.
I can come up with no technical reason why this is so since this "feature" did not exist prior to ios 17.
I also ran the same test on my iPhone with the same result.
My iPhone is an older model and I've been contemplating a new device.
However, I am reluctant to be forced into buying a device with more storage than I actually need simply to accomodate an apparent flaw in ios 17.
So I'm looking at Android for the phone or possibly a separate song player device for use when I travel and delete my songs from the iPhone.
I'll keep the iPad and live with the impact because I don't add a lot of apps to it. I use it mostly for browsing and reading.
Really not a nice tactic - especially undocumented and leaving your support associates having to take the brunt of the criticism.
